Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire
Hungarian immigrant who paid for a minute-long anti-socialist
advertisement airing on national television networks, has turned
his attention to state politics.

Peterffy, the chairman and chief executive officer of
Greenwich, Connecticut-based Interactive Brokers Group Inc., is
financing a TV campaign against a Senate Democrat from a
Hartford suburb in a drive to elect Republicans, records show.

“The state is conducting an unsustainable tax policy that
is sure to culminate in ruin,” Peterffy, 68, said yesterday by
e-mail. He said Connecticut’s 16 percent estate tax is forcing
older wealthy residents to move away.

Democrats denounced Peterffy’s contribution to Voters for
Good Government Inc., a so-called super-PAC, or political action
committee, which the state lists in Fairfield. The U.S. Supreme
Court’s Citizens United ruling removed limits on corporate and
union spending in political campaigns, spurring a rise in
activity by independent interest groups and wealthy individuals.

Peterffy, a Greenwich resident, is named as the sole donor
to the Connecticut group in a filing with the state election
office. The organization plans to spend about $38,000 on TV ads
against Senator Steve Cassano, according to the document. He’s a
Manchester Democrat who represents parts of Hartford’s eastern
suburbs.

Attack Ads

The group is preparing to start running attack ads,
predicted Adam Joseph, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader
Donald Williams, a Democrat.

“This could just be the first of many,” Joseph said. “I
don’t know if this is going to open the floodgates.”

Peterffy, whose company is the world’s largest online
broker, advocates voting Republican in his national spot, which
features him and has aired on networks such as Bloomberg TV, CNN
and CNBC. Socialism, he says in the ad, is removing Americans’
will to succeed.

“Take away their incentive by badmouthing success and you
take away the wealth that helps us take care of the needy,” he
says in the ad. Peterffy is worth $7.6 billion, according to the
Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

As for Connecticut politics, Peterffy cited the need for
Republican control of the Senate in his e-mail about the state
estate tax.

Illogical Levy

“This policy is not logical, it does not work in the
interest of the state and we’ll need a Republican state Senate
to reverse it along with other issues, but it will be
difficult,” he wrote in the e-mail. Democrats currently hold 22
of the chamber’s 36 seats, and also control the House of
Representatives and the governor’s office.

Cassano, 70, may be a target because he won his first
election for a two-year senate term in a close 2010 race, Joseph
said. He said that Cassano, a former Manchester mayor, is a
centrist and a business owner.

Cheri Ann Pelletier, Cassano’s Republican opponent, said
she wasn’t aware of the outside group’s plan to air ads against
Cassano. State records show that the two candidates have both
signed up for public financing of their campaigns, qualifying
them for as much as $91,000 and limiting their spending.

When he contributed to Voters for Good Government, he
didn’t know Cassano, Peterffy said in a telephone interview. He
declined to say how much he gave the group and whether more ad
campaigns would be mounted against other Democrats.

“I’m sorry about this,” Peterffy said about targeting
Cassano. “I looked him up, and he looks like a nice guy.”